[Glenn Wright]

Amores I.3
by Publius Ovidius Naso

Fairness is all that I pray for: the girl who just recently caught me
      either should love me or tell       why I should love her as well!
Ah, I have wanted too much—if she only gave leave to be cherished,
      Venus will surely have heard       all of my prayers, every word!
Can’t you accept one who offers his service for many a decade?
      Can’t you accept one who knew       how with pure faith to love you?
If the great names of my much-revered ancestors fail to commend me,
      (ancient and noble, a knight       founded our bloodline by right),
neither will all of my farmland, just tilled by my myriad ploughshares,
      nor, to control my expense,       parents with thrift and good sense—
Phoebus, however, and his nine companions—the Muses, and Bacchus
      favor the cause I pursue;       Love will bestow me on you,
Faithfulness, too, who’s unyielding to anyone, spotless in morals,
      Honesty, naked and strong,       Modesty, blushing at wrong.
Numerous lovers disgust me; I’m not Cupid’s fickle horse-jumper:
      I make a vow at Faith’s shrine:       You’ll be eternally mine.
Let me live out with you years that the threads of the Fates have allotted,
     relishing years that they gave,       then you will weep at my grave.
Offer yourself as a suitable subject to me for my poems—
     songs will come forth by my art       wholly inspired by your heart.
Poetry gave these a name: poor Io whose horns were her terror,
      Leda, whom Jove had betrayed,       swan-shaped his form he displayed,
virgin Europa he carried across the vast ocean from Asia,
      dressed as a bull, strong and grand,      horns being held by her hand.
So will we, equally, all through the world enjoy fame and great honor,
      always our names will be tied,       sung in a poem with pride.

—————————

Edits:
L5: Can’t you accept him who gives you his service for many a decade? > Can’t you accept one who offers his service for many a decade?
L8: ancient and august, a knight      founded our bloodline by right, > (ancient and noble, a knight       founded our bloodline by right),
L15: Multiple lovers disgust me; > Numerous lovers disgust me;
L24: his horns were caressed by her hand. > horns being held by her hand.


———————————-

Original:

Amores I.3
P. Ovidi Nasonis

Iusta precor: quae me nuper praedata puella est,
      aut amet aut faciat, cur ego semper amem!
A, nimium volui—tantum patiatur amari;
     audierit nostras tot Cytherea preces!
Accipe, per longos tibi qui deserviat annos;
     accipe, qui pura norit amare fide!
Si me non veterum commendant magna parentum
     nomina, si nostri sanguinis auctor eques,
nec meus innumeris renovatur campus aratris,
     temperat et sumptus parcus uterque parens—
at Phoebus comitesque novem vitisque repertor
      hac faciunt, et me qui tibi donat, Amor,
et nulli cessura fides, sine crimine mores
      nudaque simplicitas purpureusque pudor.
Non mihi mille placent, non sum desultor amoris:
      tu mihi, siqua fides, cura perennis eris.
Tecum, quos dederint annos mihi fila sororum
      vivere contingat teque dolente mori!
Te mihi materiam felicem in carmina praebe—
     provenient causa carmina digna sua.
Carmine nomen habent exterrita cornibus Io
     et quam fluminea lusit adulter ave,
quaeque super pontum simulato vecta iuvenco
      virginea tenuit cornua vara manu.
Nos quoque per totum pariter cantabimur orbem,
     iunctaque semper erunt nomina nostra tuis.

————————
Crib:

I pray for fairness: may the girl who recently took me as plunder
either love [me] or make [a case] why I should always love [her]!
Ah, I wanted too much—[if only] she allows [herself] to be loved so much,
Cytherea [Venus] will have heard all our prayers!
Accept him who would indenture himself to you for many years;
accept him who has learned how to love with pure faith!
If the great names of my ancient ancestors do not recommend me,
nor the [fact that] the founder of our bloodline [was] a knight,
neither will my farmland, reworked by innumerable plows,
and each [of two] thrifty parent who regulates my spending—
but Apollo and [his] nine companions [the Muses], and the inventor of the grapevine [Bacchus]
do this [favor], and Love, who gives me to you,
and Faithfulness, yielding to no one, [having] morals without reproach,
and naked Simplicity and blushing Modesty.
A thousand [lovers] do not please me; I am not a horse-jumper of love:
You, for me, if [there is] any faithfulness, will be my everlasting care.
Let it happen to me to live those years with you that the threads of the sisters [Fates] will have given to me, and that I die with you grieving!
Offer yourself to me as appropriate/fertile material for poems—
poems will come forth worthy of its inspiration.
By means of poetry they have a [famous] name: Io, terrified by [her] horns,
and she [Leda] whom the adulterer [Zeus/Iuppiter] tricked as a river bird,
and she, carried over the ocean by [him in] the guise of a bull, who held the curved horns with her virgin hand.
We also will equally be sung throughout the whole world,
and our [my] names will always be joined to yours.

Note: desultor in line 15 refers to an acrobat who jumps from one horse to another in a display of agility.

[Carl Copeland]

I appreciate your elegiac craftsmanship, Glenn. I still have my doubts about whether the sugarcoating of rhyme justifies all the extra ingredients, but you seem committed, and I’m game. Some initial thoughts:

Fairness is all that I pray for: the girl who just recently caught me
     either should love me or tell     why I should love her as well!

I don’t think “as well” works here, implying “I should love her as she loves me.” That misreading is compounded by “caught,” which makes it sound like she’d been chasing him.

Ah, I have wanted too much—if she only gave leave to be cherished,
     Venus will surely have heard     all of my prayers, every word!

I may have been misled by “surely,” but the best I could make of this was: “Venus must surely have heard all my prayers, so why doesn’t she answer by making the girl love me?” The crib tells me it means “If she allows me to love her, that will mean Venus has answered all my prayers.” Then again, the crib has “our prayers,” so I wonder what the girl is praying for if she’s spurned him. Or is it the same royal “our” as in the last line?

Can’t you accept him who gives you his service for many a decade?

I’d suggest “offers his service” or “offers you service.” Otherwise, someone might think he had already served her for decades.

If the great names of my much-revered ancestors fail to commend me,
     ancient and august, a knight     founded our bloodline by right,

The crib is missing the bit about the knight. If you can’t start that phrase with a connecting word, I suggest setting it off with dashes or parentheses. That would also clarify whether “ancient and august” refers to the ancestors or the knight. Also, how are you stressing “august”? As an adjective, it should be stressed on the second syllable.

neither will all of my farmland, just tilled by my myriad ploughshares,
     nor, to control my expense,      parents with thrift and good sense—

By “just,” I suppose you mean “just now,” though I first read it as “only.” Either way, it seems fillerish.

It’s a pity to lose the epithet “inventor of the grapevine.” You could leave the Muses and Bacchus unnamed, as in the original, but I still don’t know how you’d fit it in.

     Honesty, naked and strong,

     dressed as a bull, strong and grand

These both seem very rhyme-driven.

Multiple lovers disgust me;

I wonder why “multiple” (more than one), when the original has “a thousand” (a large number). As a compromise, how about “Numbers of”? Also, why “disgust” rather than the less prudish “don’t please”?

     his horns were caressed by her hand.

“His” adds an extra syllable to the hemistiche. Just wanted to make sure you were ok with that.

[Carl Copeland]

If the great names of my much-revered ancestors fail to commend me,
     ancient and august, a knight     founded our bloodline by right,
neither will all of my farmland, just tilled by my myriad ploughshares,
     nor, to control my expense,     parents with thrift and good sense—

Back again. You’ll soon find, if you haven’t already, that I have a way of misreading everything that can be misread. That’s happened with these lines, as I discovered when I peeked at a prose translation. Don’t laugh, but I thought Ovid did have big-name ancestors and extensive farmland and that frugal parents ensured that the family fortune wouldn’t be squandered—but that these assets failed to impress his beloved. Even the crib didn’t disabuse me of this. It would help inveterate misreaders like me if you’d at least remove/replace some of the boldfaced words to tone down the definiteness they impart to Ovid’s non-existent noble lineage and fortune.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Carl—
I appreciate your careful consideration of my efforts. Your comments always encourage me to think about my pieces with sharper focus.

As far as the rhymes in the pentameter lines, I use them to try to suggest the gentle humor of Ovid’s Amores. Elegiac couplets were the catch-all verse form in Classical poetry, used for serious love poems, humor, social commentary, laments (the surviving tone in modern elegies)—essentially for anything non-epic or non-heroic. I’m signaling with the rhyme that perhaps what the speaker says should not be taken completely seriously.

“Praedata . . .est” suggests that the speaker feels that the girl has indeed “pirated” his heart. The poem is very much in the spirit of the medieval “complaint,” in which the lover complains of the cruelty of his lady love and threatens to die unless she agrees to cuddle with him. It implies, though, that her coyness is pretended, as in Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” I think Ovid’s speaker believes that the girl (whom we discover in a later poem in Amores is named Corinna) does, in fact, already feel attracted to him and has “caught” him like a fish.

The expression, “if she only gave leave to be cherished” is rather awkward and archaic. To “give leave” is an old-fashioned way of saying “to give permission.” We still use it this way in the expression, “by your leave.” My intended meaning was your second reading: “If she allows me to love her, that will mean that Venus will have heard my prayers.”

Throughout, the speaker uses “we” and “our” to mean “I” and “my.” I suspect this is to suggest his noble lineage with something like a royal “we.”

I adopted your suggestions for lines 5, 8, and 15, and added the missing line 8 to the crib. I changed “august” to “noble” to correct the meter and changed “multiple” to “numerous.” (“Myriad would have been my first choice, but I already used it in line 9.”) I also fixed line 24.

Ovid actually did belong to the lower rung of the upper class (or the upper rung of the middle class.). His family was from Sulmona, east of Rome, and he was of the equestrian class. His father had enough money and property to insure that Ovid and his brother received magnificent educations and were introduced into the highest levels of society, so although we might think his résumé sounds a bit inflated, he would have been considered quite a catch. At least until he was banished from Rome for upsetting Emperor Augustus.

Thanks so much for your very helpful input, Carl. I very much appreciate your dedicated effort and perceptive insights.